Baseball

Stories From The Barber Pole – Midseason Player Grades: The Outfield

By Andy Jonathan 438

Now we move on to the section of the diamond with approximately zero remaining starters from Spring Training. The turnover ratio in the White Sox outfield has reached a level usually reserved for Amazon warehouse employees and White House spokespeople. The dearth of injuries has provided quite a few opportunities for guys who would’ve just been role players to step up and help the team.

And then there’s Adam Eaton.

 

ADAM EATON

.201/.298/.642

9.1% BB Rate / 25.3% K rate

5 HR/ 28 RBI / 33 R

.288 wOBA / 82 wRC+ / 0.3 WAR

I only put Eaton here to highlight what an absolutely terrible signing he was to begin with. With Rick Hahn’s yearly attempt to beat out the market by being done with his free agent signings before Christmas, the Sox ended up overpaying for a player that’s produced half the value than a guy that was CUT BY THE FUCKING PIRATES. Getting DFA’ed in the opening weeks of July shows that Rick Hahn can at least admit when he’s made a mistake, but unfortunately he doesn’t learn from them as this is the 2nd year in a row he’s put a band-aid on what was a mortar wound in RF.

GRADE: F….uck off forever

 

ANDREW VAUGHN

.253/.320/.772

8.1% BB Rate / 25.0% K Rate

10 HR / 28 RBI / 36 R

.331 wOBA / 112 wRC+ / 0.9 WAR

I don’t like giving Tony LaRussa too much credit (because I don’t think he does much more than just sit there most of the time), but his handling of Andrew Vaughn this season deserves praise. You can see him developing at an exponential rate as the season progresses, and a good amount is helped by how Tony uses and shelters him in the lineup. Vaughn was already a masher of left handed pitching, but in the month of July his splits against righties has exploded. Just look at his slash line against RHP in June vs July:

June: .182/.191/.487  1HR  27 wRC+ (ouch)

July: .393/.419/1.205  3HR  219 wRC+ (holy shit)

On top of all these offensive corrections he’s making, the defense he’s playing in LF (a position he’d never played before) is slightly above league average. Which, if you think about everything else going on with him is absolutely insane. The kid is going to be a monster, and his new positional eligibility solves a lot of issues for the organization. Awesome.

GRADE: A

BILLY HAMILTON

.230/.253/.667

3.2% BB Rate / 32.3% K Rate

2 HR / 10 RBI / 16 R

.282 wOBA / 78 wRC+ / 0.4 WAR

After Eloy went down with his pec tear back in March, I wrote about potential replacements for him. When I mentioned Billy Hamilton, I basically said that if he was going to be an everyday OF for the White Sox they have bigger issues than that. Just looking at his body of work, what I said still holds true. That doesn’t mean that Billy hasn’t brought value to the Sox, it’s actually quite the opposite.

He’s had some seriously clutch hits, plays excellent defense in the OF, and is still a serious threat on the basepaths. His .253 OBP leaves something to be desired, but that’s been the case throughout his career so it’s not an outlier by any means. He’s also just a really good dude, and very fun to root for. Exactly what you want out of a bench player, and when Eloy comes back I’m hoping he sticks around. He’s the kind of unsung hero that can make memorable moments in the postseason.

GRADE: C+

ADAM ENGEL

.286/.340/.690

2.1% BB Rate / 14.9% K Rate

5 HR / 11 RBI / 10 R

.424 wOBA / 173 wRC+ / 0.7 WAR

Adam Engel has only played in 13 games thus far this season, so the stats as shown are somewhat misleading. Except for the dingers. 5 HR in 13 games (while probably unsustainable) is pretty impressive. What else is impressive is (Much like Andrew Vaughn) that Engel is starting to hit right handed pitching at a higher rate than ever before in his career. In those 13 games he’s played, he’s actually batting .333 against RHP vs .221 against LHP. 3 of his 5 dingers have come off righties as well. Again, a very small sample size…but an encouraging one.

GRADE: Incomplete

BRIAN GOODWIN

.267/.353/.864

11.7% BB Rate / 21.4% K Rate

4 HR / 15 RBI / 17 R

.370 wOBA / 137 wRC+ / 0.6 WAR

All the kudos to Rick Hahn for very clearly having Brian Goodwin on his radar even before every tendon in Luis Robert’s hips exploded like a rubber band ball being chainsawed in half. He really didn’t waste much time signing him to a deal after the Pirates (for some reason) moved on from him at the beginning of the year. Goodwin had a very good run in 2019 with the Angels with 17 home runs in 130 games, but was sent to the Reds in an off-season deal. He had less luck with them, as he was treated as a placeholder for Jessie Winker and Nick Senzel.

His time with the Sox has been successful by any metric that you want to use, but I’m most impressed with his patience at the plate. The 11.7% BB rate would be the highest of his career, and he credits his time in the minor leagues as giving him the impetus to overhaul his approach at the plate. It’s working, and the Sox are reaping the benefits. He’s a keeper for sure.

GRADE: A

LEURY GARCÍA

.263/.330/.699

9.3% BB Rate / 25.5% K Rate

3 HR / 39 RBI / 36 R

.308 wOBA / 96 wRC+ / 1.2 WAR

A lot has been asked of Leury Legend this season with the amount of injuries to Sox starters this year. He had a pretty rough start to the season, but once the calendar month began with “J” he’s come on strong. The power he showed last season really hasn’t appeared yet, but he’s getting on base at a good clip and plays at least league average defense at multiple places around the diamond. Once (hopefully) people start coming back healthy, Leury can be used where he fits best: as a day of rest for everyone on the diamond. You can’t go wrong with someone who is positionally flexible like him, and Hahn did a good job keeping him on the roster.

GRADE: B+

 

Baseball

It Can Always Get Worse – Luis Robert’s Hip Explodes, Likely Done For Season

By Andy Jonathan 584

I was hoping when I wrote up the analysis of what could be done with the lineup after Eloy went down with a torn pectoral muscle back in March that it would be the last time I would have to do such a thing. What a fool I was.

Last night, the worst case scenario was confirmed by Rick Hahn about the status of Luis Robert going forward this season after he went down like he was shot beating out an infield single in the loss to Cleveland on Sunday. Diagnosed with a grade 3 strain of his hip flexor (an odd way of saying he completely tore the entire tendon from the hip bone), Robert will not even begin to work on any baseball activities for 12-16 weeks, let alone be on a rehab assignment. Even on the most optimistic of timelines, he wouldn’t be back on the field before late September at best.

In reality however, the greater concern for him will be his range of motion and overall mobility going forward. The player that immediately came to my mind when I heard the diagnosis was Bo Jackson. While not the same injury (Jackson had his hip dislocated while being tackled from behind, which resulted in damage to the blood supply to his entire hip and caused avascular necrosis), the fears of a reduced level of athleticism for him is real. There are two body parts in baseball that when injured are almost impossible to play through. The back is one and the hips are the other. Everything he does is either powered by or enabled by motion through the hips. If they aren’t returned to full functionality with healing and rehab this could be career-altering.

So first and foremost is hoping that Luis can come back completely healthy and mobile. After we take that into consideration, now we ponder the second half of this equation: What do the Sox do from here and how can they plug that ginormous hole left behind?

As it stands, the White Sox have 1.5 functioning outfielders on their roster. I only count Billy Hamilton as .5 of one, because until he can hit above a .225 average (something he hasn’t been able to do since 2018) he’s nothing more than a defensive replacement for whichever 1st baseman LaRussa currently has in left field. Also, calling Adam Eaton a functioning OF is being fairly generous, as he’s gone into a tailspin at the plate since the 3rd week of April. Adam Engel is also at least 3 weeks away, as he’s had a setback in recovering from his hamstring strain with zero guarantee he wouldn’t turn around and hurt it again with the way he plays. Leury Garcia can play a decent center field, but you also need him to fill in when Moncada, Anderson and Madrigal need a breather. So internal options are limited/nonexistent.

Down in the minor leagues, the closest thing to a major league ready prospect (and I use that term as loose as Robert’s hip muscles currently are) is Micker Adolfo, who’s only spent 90 plate appearances above single A ball, and slashed .205/.337/.632 at AA Birmingham. Unless he’s hiding some superpowers that he’s yet to make apparent, he’s not the answer at all. Yoelqui Cespedes has yet to take an at bat on North American soil, so hoping he could step in is futile as well.

The free agent pool outside of Yasil Puig is drier than the Sahara, and at this point if Puig remains unsigned there’s probably a damn good reason for it. This leaves the Sox one viable option, and that’s the trade market.

Unfortunately for the Sox, everyone on the planet now knows they’re in the market for outfield help so the asking price automatically goes up. In addition to that, the trade market in early May is notoriously slow, and for good reason. Really no teams have been eliminated this early, and the ones that are realistic about their chances probably don’t have much that the Sox would want anyways, or they’re smart enough to try and wait until the deadline where they could conceivably start a bidding war for whoever’s services they’re selling. This is why I’m not going to include Kris Bryant on this list, as if the Cubs have two functioning neurons left they know the asking price can be tripled at the deadline for him. All that being said, here’s the more realistic possibilities for Rick Hahn to pursue:

 

Joey Gallo – Rangers

.234/.410/.351 3HR/11 RBI/130 wRC+

The first one here also makes the most sense, and probably should’ve happened at the exact same time Rick Hahn traded for Lance Lynn. While Gallo has only hit 3 home runs thus far, his .410 OBP would slide right into the middle of a Sox lineup that leads the AL in the category. The power hasn’t shown up yet, but some of that could be attributed to pitchers refusing to give him anything to hit due to zero protection in a moribund Rangers lineup. Gallo has 2 years of team control after this one, and being that they’re the higher end of the arbitration years they could be pretty expensive, thus lowering the asking price. In addition, keeping him around in 2022 and 23 solves the RF problem if/when Luis returns to the height of his powers.

 

Charlie Blackmon – Rockies

.198/.323/.632 1 HR/12 RBI/67 wRC+

The option that would cost the Sox not much in terms of prospects and moreso just money (and therefore the least likely to happen) would be Blackmon. While Blackmon has gotten off to a terrible start as evidenced above, he has an all-star pedigree backing him up. Just last year he slashed .303/.356/.804 so the ability is still there, and as Nolan Arenado is proving this year the splits away from the space station environment that is Coors Field isn’t what it used to be. With him still having 2 years left on his deal and earning $21 million in 2022 it wouldn’t take much more than a willingness to eat his salary to pry him loose from a Rockies team that’s hell-bent on a rebuild.

 

Starling Marte – Marlins

.310/.414/.897 2 HR/8 RBI/141 wRC+

The tastiest option on this list is also the most problematic. Marte is in the final year of his deal with the Marlins and has already said he wants to test the free agent waters in 2022, making his trade from the Fish very likely. The only issue is that he’s currently sitting on the IL with a fractured rib, and is not likely to return to action until the first week of June at the earliest. Despite that, it probably wouldn’t affect the asking price much since the Fish would realistically get him back long before the trade deadline with plenty of time to build his value back up. The cost for this 4-5 month rental will be the steepest out of all of these, and probably the most pie-in-the-sky. That being said, if you want an impact player than can not only hit but play the position vacated by Luis Robert then Marte fits the bill perfectly.

 

The question then remains what (if anything) Rick Hahn is willing to give up. With the threat of a lost season in 2022 due to a labor stoppage most likely spearheaded by the skinflint owner of the White Sox, are we willing to wait around 2 years to see this team at the height of their powers?

As it stands now, the Sox have enough pitching and hitting to easily keep them  in the mix with Minnesota and Cleveland. With Eloy projected to return to the team before the playoffs begin, there’s no reason to think that they couldn’t snag a Wild Card spot bare minimum. Hahn can talk about “windows of contention” all he likes, but the fact of the matter is that the Sox traded a starting pitcher in Dane Dunning (who fits that window perfectly) for one year for Lance Lynn. He’s pushed some of his chips in now, and in my opinion it’s time to toss the rest in. I don’t want to wait until 2023 when he has the excuse of a Giolito extension to not add again.

No more waiting, Get it done.

 

 

Baseball

Series Recap and Mariners Preview: Sox Lose 3 of 4 To Angels – Hauntingly Bad

By Andy Jonathan 716

BOX SCORES

White Sox 3 – Angels 4

White Sox 12 – Angels 8

White Sox 3 – Angels 5

White Sox 4 – Angels 7

 

Well that was not the start we all envisioned, was it?

For a team that touts bullpen strength as one of it’s weapons, the White Sox didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory in that department. The Sox very easily could have (and probably should have) walked out of Anaheim with 3 wins, but instead now have 3 losses to start the season. Aaron Bummer and Evan Marshall are the two prime suspects here, both blowing leads in the 8th inning in games 1 and 3 respectively. They were aided and abetted by some atrocious defense by the Sox and an inability to capitalize on runners in scoring position. To add insult to (more) injury, Tim Anderson came up lame in the 1st inning, attempting to run out a ground ball in his first at bat Sunday night. He shouldn’t miss too much time, but for a team that’s depth is already paper thin this is asking quite a lot.

TO THE BULLETS:

 

NUMBERS DON’T LIE

 

-As mentioned above, Aaron Bummer and Evan Marshall had a rough weekend. It was pretty clear from the jump that neither guy had their premium stuff. While Bummer was the victim of a boneheaded throw by Nick Madrigal in the 8th inning in game 1, he still had a chance to get out of the jam and ended up walking Justin Upton to set up the dagger by Pujols. Marshall didn’t fare any better in game 3, He managed to strike out Mike Trout, but then gave up a single to Rendon and a triple to Jared Walsh, then hung a cookie to Justin Upton who deposited it into the left field seats. *Fart Noise*

-All was not terrible with the bullpen, however. Both Michael Kopech and Garret Crochet were fucking nails in their appearances. They each went 2 innings in their respective games, striking out 3 per and keeping the Angels off the board when Keuchel and Lynn couldn’t make it out of the 5th inning. Kopech and Crochet are awesome weapons to have out of the pen, but if Cease and Rodon can’t cut it they may be needed in the rotation before too long.

-Speaking of Dallas Keuchel, I realize that he didn’t have a full spring training to get into game shape, but him constantly missing upstairs with his stuff is concerning to say the least. It begs the question as to whether his numbers last year were the true him or just the benefit of feasting on shitty central division lineups. It certainly bears watching.

-The defense has been absolutely atrocious to start the season. Through the first 4 games the Sox have allowed 7 unearned runs out of the 24 that were scored against them, the ones in the outfield being the most egregious. In game two, Matt Foster came in to get Keuchel out of the jam he created. He got Ohtani and Trout to both strike out, and managed to get Rendon to hit a catchable fly ball out to right. Eaton came running over and just flat out missed the ball. Game 3 featured Luis Robert running in to call off Tim Anderson on a high pop behind 2nd. The fly ball glanced off his mitt, then off his forehead, allowing two runs to score. Eaton then proceeded to use his pool noodle arm to throw the ball off the pitchers mound. All around Benny Hill-level shit.

-For the most part, LaRussa’s first series back in a Sox uniform went pretty well until the 9th inning of game 4. With everything tied up after the Sox clawed their way back to knot the game up at 4, instead of turning to a rested Liam Hendriks in a high leverage situation he opted for Jose Ruiz who allowed the winning run to get on base. He then turned to Matt Foster who served up a 3 run bomb to Jared Walsh. Foster was great in game 2, but situations like this is why the Sox supposedly went out and paid the money they did for Hendriks.

-Dylan Cease picked up where he left off last season, throwing waaaaay too many pitches, very few of which were in the strike zone. He worked out of a few jams, but what the Sox really needed from him was innings. Throwing 52 pitches through the first two isn’t going to give the bullpen any relief, especially since Lynn and Keuchel couldn’t make it out of the 5th inning. I really wanted to believe that him and Ethan Katz had fixed his control issues, but the results thus far are not encouraging.

-Congrats to Yermin Mercedes for living his dream and making history by going 8-8 to start his major league career and being the first of what is hopefully many feel good stories of this MLB season. Love to see the happiness on that guy’s face.

– 1 and 3 is not how any of us pictured the Sox to start the season, and I totally get the frustration but big picture: even with everything that went wrong in this series the Sox still had chances to win every game. They weren’t getting their doors blown off, and the issues (with the exception of Tim Anderson’s hammy) are all correctable. Which leads us to:

 

Series Preview: White Sox at Mariners – Yarrr, I Don’t Know What I’m Doin

 

VS

 

Probable Starters

Game 1: Carlos Rodon (0-2, 8.22 ERA) vs. Justus Sheffield (4-3, 3.58 ERA)

Game 2: Lucas Giolito (0-0, 3.38 ERA) vs. James Paxton (1-1, 6.64 ERA)

Game 3: Dallas Keuchel (0-0, 6.75 ERA) vs. Justin Dunn (4-1, 4.34 ERA)

 

After the shenanigans in Anaheim concluded, the Sox travel up the coast to the birthplace of Grunge and Starbucks to take on the Mariners. The M’s, fresh off a series win against the Giants, are smack in the middle of what may turn out to be a sped up rebuilding phase. Having completely turned over their roster over the past 3 years, sending everything that wasn’t nailed down to either the Mets or the Yankees, the Mariners are chock full of young talent that can only be described as “fun.”

Taking the bump in game one for the M’s is the son of Gary Sheffield, and once prized prospect of the Yankees, Justus Sheffield. The Mariners acquired Sheff from New York in a deal (much like the Sox with the Nationals and Lucas Giolito) where they sent James Paxton out East in return for him and a few other prospects that haven’t made it to the major league level yet. Sheffield toiled in the M’s system for a season before making the rotation in 2020 after a brief callup in September of 2019. He quickly made his impact, going 4-3 with a 3.5 ERA, and was 4th among all qualified rookie starters with 1.6 WAR in the shortened season.

Game two features Gio’s second start, and Paxton’s first as he was skipped in the rotation to give him extra rest. The Yankees didn’t really get the value out of Paxton that they were hoping to when they made that trade in 2018. He had a solid 2019, going 15-6 with a 3.86 ERA for the Yanks, but cratered in 2020 only starting 5 games and ending with a 6.68 ERA before he went under the knife for a flexor injury in his elbow. The M’s brought him back this season on a one year “prove it” deal for $8.5 million that could be worth up to $10 if he hits certain bonuses.

Justin Dunn, the former 1st round pick of the Mets in 2018 was acquired in the deal that sent Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz to NYC. Dunn, a former closer in college, was converted to a starter by the Mariners in 2019. He’s got a decend 4 seam fastball, and two quality breaking pitches in his curve and slider. For a kid who had only been a starter for less than a year, he performed pretty admirably in 2020. He doesn’t strike many people out, with a 7.4 K/9 average to go with a high 6.1 BB/9, so he can be gotten to if the Sox offense can wait him out.

Offensively for the M’s, last year’s ROY Kyle Lewis is still out with a knee injury, so that’s a bonus. The rest of the squad outside of the returning Mitch Haniger is still fairly unproven, though there is a lot of upside there. Dylan Moore is a Leury Garcia-type who plays all the diamond but hits for more power. Evan White is the M’s version of Andrew Vaughn, a 1B/DH type with very good power but not the eye of AV. Kyle Seager is still here, toiling away in the shadow of his more talented sibling down in LA.

Realistically if the Sox starters can keep the ball in the park and not walk anyone they should have a good chance at winning at least 2 of 3. I’m very curious about the return of Hard Carl tonight against Paxton. Hoping he has better results in his first start than his fellow Ethan Katz protégée Dylan Cease did last night.

The starters need to eat some innings this series after the bullpen threw a combined 14.2 in 4 games. They desperately need a break, and with no off day until Friday, it’s up to Gio and Keuchel to give them one. Offensively, going up against two lefties this series should theoretically work in the Sox favor. Moncada and Grandal need to pick up some of the slack that losing Tim and Eloy caused. Now would be a good time for Andrew Vaughn to break out as well.

Let’s Go Sox.

 

 

*Credit for the glorious Ghost Eloy pic goes to @RightSox. Follow him for more hilarity.